Cousins
by Shadows.4leaf.Clover
Summary: I don't know how, or why, or when, but it happened. I am in love with my cousin. Okay well, he isn't my real cousin. Since I'm adopted, he really has no blood relation to me at all. So I guess that makes it better, sort of. Except not really, because he's still a he. And that wouldn't be a problem, except that I'm also a he.
1. The Problem

**A/N**: I have finally returned, after a four year hiatus. My writing has changed (personally, I think it's for the better) dramatically from my first story. Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

**Title**: Cousins

**Chapter**: The Problem

**Chapter Rating**: K

**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

* * *

It happened.

I don't know how, or why, or when, but it happened. And I have no idea what to do about it.

I am in love with my cousin.

My very male cousin.

Okay well, he isn't my real cousin. I'm adopted, so he really has no blood relation to me at all. He's the son of my dad's distant (but still in frequent contact with us) relative. So I guess that makes it better, sort of.

Except not really, because he's still a he. And that wouldn't be a problem, except that I'm also a he.

The thing is, I don't really consider myself gay. When I think of myself as gay, I imagine this girly, sassy, fashionista version of myself, and that's not me at all. I have never felt any sort of attraction past platonic feelings for any other male in my life. I work out regularly, but I have never once worried about my hips or my thighs or what I should and shouldn't be eating. I still want girls to think I'm gorgeous. And I still find girls extremely attractive. I'm not gay.

But for some reason, whenever my cousin is around, my stomach kind of flips, and I can't help wanting to be around him, to please him, to make him smile and laugh. I want him to like me, I want him to think I'm hot, I want him to admire me. I want to comfort him and be there for him when no one else is. I want to be someone no one else can compare to in his eyes.

I realize that you could make a fantastically delicious lasagna with all the cheese I just spilled out there, but I don't think there is a cheese-free way of verbally expressing the way you feel about someone you love. Not if you want to express it right, anyway.

Now, my cousin and I are actually very close, which would be good, except it isn't. We grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, and know mostly the same people. We even spend a good amount of time with each other outside of school, since my dad works in the ER as a surgeon and sometimes gets held up there for indefinite amounts of time. When that happens, I usually just crash at my cousin's place, since the house gets boring pretty fast if I'm in it alone. My cousin does the same thing when his dad is off being the director of the FBI all night. Plus, he is really good at math, so I usually get him to help me with my homework in exchange for help with computer programming, since that's the one class he does not do spectacularly in.

So, we're close. What's bad about that?

Well, here's the thing. It can be kind of exhausting pretending to act normal and platonic around someone you want to be with. You have to keep reminding yourself about silly little things that wouldn't matter with another person. Like for example, I always have to remember not to stare too long when he isn't looking. It's not that I'm mesmerized or anything, that kind of crap is for the movies; I just like looking at him. Sometimes I also have to remind myself not to linger too long if I do something that involves touching him, like when i tap his shoulder to get his attention, or when my leg accidentally brushes his under the table while we're doing homework.

And then there is the burning. That simultaneously awful and wonderful burning desire that you only feel for someone you desperately want but know you can't have. It's the feeling that makes me want to be impossibly close to my cousin, that makes me so curious to know what he tastes like, how warm he is, how he looks when he's consumed by that same burning feeling for me.

Alright, you're drowning in a puddle of gooey cheese, I get it. But I figure if I'm going to explain it, I may as well do it accurately.

My cousin, helpful as he is, happens to have this habit (for lack of a better word) that puts me on an awkward fence between wanting to punch him for it and wanting to encourage him to do it more.

He's kind of a touchy-feely sort of person.

I don't mean that in a girly way; it's not like he greets all his friends with hugs and kisses, and he certainly doesn't go out of his way to be in physical contact with just anybody. His touchy quirks are reserved for his closest inner circle, which consists of his family, me, and a couple of our closest friends. I always sort of figured it was just his way of acknowledging that we mean more to him than the average person.

Like when we watch movies for example; he almost always sits on the floor with his back against someone's legs. Or if we're studying, he pokes my sides when he gets bored, because he knows I'm ticklish. Small things like that, things that appear normal to anyone else but we know better because we know he reserves it for special people.

And that would be fine, except that those small, fleeting touches, while appreciated, just make the burning sensation that much stronger. At least in my case.

I don't know how to handle being in love with him. I haven't even begun to figure out how or why or when it all happened, and I just feel like I don't remember how to be in my own body around him.

Speak of the relative; he just texted me. He says his dad will be out tonight and wants to know if he can crash here. I say yes, of course, and he sys he'll be over in a couple of hours.

In the meantime, maybe I should just take a deep breath, get some snacks (maybe nachos, to help get rid of all the cheese?) and think this through.

I guess I should start at the beginning.

Oh, I almost forgot: my cousin's name is Sasuke.


	2. Just Hungry

**A/N :** I am literally THE master procrastinator. Also, I've been really busy with school stuff. Apologies.!

* * *

"Okay, this one is a little tricky. When you have a constant raised to the x like that, the derivative can't be found the same way as x raised to a constant. So let 'a' represent the constant; the derivative of 'a' raised to the x is the original 'a' to the x times the natural logarithm of 'a'."

I scribble down the formula as Sasuke tells me. He makes it sound easy enough, but I know I won't remember it if I don't write it down.

Even though I've recently admitted to myself that I have fallen for him, my feelings for Sasuke seem to be on a sort of dimmer switch. As if someone were standing inside my head in a dark room, slowly inching the lights closer and closer to full brightness, until my subconscious bats their hand away and edges the lights down again.

What I mean by that is that I am not head over heels for Sasuke every single minute of every single day. Some days I am happy to see him simply because he is my best friend. On those days, I find it silly that I wanted to be with him as anything more than what we are now. I tell myself that he isn't really that much more attractive than any of my other friends, that he isn't particularly more interesting than any of us. He's just Sasuke. So I convince myself that it was just a weird phase. Seriously, in love with Sasuke, what was I thinking? No way.

Other days, his gaze alone can make me feel lightheaded, the tiniest, most pathetic amount of contact makes the touched spot tingle, and if I happen to catch his scent when we're jammed together in line for lunch, I have to force myself not to bury my face into his shoulder and inhale as deeply as I can. I don't just want him. I hunger for him.

I remember the first time I noticed anything weird happening to me. We were in seventh grade, and our class was on a field trip to this recreated colonial-style village, where a tour guide dressed in traditional colonial clothing was showing us how people lived back when that village had been real. Sasuke and I had slunk to the back of the group, having had little interest in the topic. The village was nice enough, but neither of us are history buffs. Didn't stop us from getting good grades anyway, though.

The tour guide had taken us to many different rooms and exhibits, one of which had been the recreated mill. Here, she had explained, was where corn was ground into meal before it was sold for other purposes. She had shown us the grinder, a big stone bowl with lots of corn in it, a thick slab of stone in the middle of the bowl, and a handle on the outer edge of the slab. She had explained that it took two people to turn it, because it was so heavy, and asked if anyone wanted to try.

After watching a few others take a turn at it, Sasuke had nudged me.

"You want to?" he had said. I turned to look at him.

I will never understand why my subconscious thought that was the best moment to start having feelings for Sasuke. Seriously? In an old recreated colonial village, with all our classmates milling about, and Sasuke asking me if I wanted to help him grind corn into meal?

But for some reason, even though all the other details of that day were a vague memory, I remember Sasuke vividly. That day, his eyes weren't black, they were obsidian; inky, but flecked with varying shades of gray. One side of his mouth was quirked upwards in a half-interested smirk, and he was looking at me expectantly and leaning towards me slightly, waiting for an answer.

At the time, I didn't understand why my stomach flipped when I looked at him. We were only twelve, I didn't understand anything. I thought I had just been hungry.

"You know, I'm willing to help you, but if you aren't going to tell me what you don't understand, I'm going to do my own homework."

I blink back to the present, and eighteen year old Sasuke is looking at me impatiently.

"Sorry, what?"

Sasuke gives an irritated huff and brushes his bangs away from his face.

"Constants raised to the x, Naruto. Do you understand how to derive them?"

"Oh. Yeah, I think so. Thanks."

"Show me. The derivative of six to the x is...?"

I think for a moment before answering. "Six to the x times the natural logarithm of six."

Satisfied, Sasuke smirks and jabs me in the side. I let out an indignant sound and flinch away.

"I'm sure the voices in your head are interesting, but if you think too long you'll hurt yourself. Usuratonkachi."

I aim a light punch at his shoulder.

"Whatever, dick. You're just mad because I'd rather talk to the voices in my head than to you."

"Hn. Well, now that you're done, teach me computer science. Why do I need to pass this variable by reference?"

As I explain the answer to him, I glance at him through my bangs. His brow is furrowed and his jaw is set in determination to understand. He bites the corner of his bottom lip, and peers at the page I'm scribbling on. The black bangs he pushed away earlier have returned to brush against his face.

Today, I love him. Today, the light switch is on.

"Fuck yeah! Take that!"

"Usuratonkachi. I'm still winning. By two lives!"

"Shut up! I will make you my bitch yet!"

"I know you're only saying that because you can't get a girl in real life, but don't take it out on me."

"Fuck you."

"Sakura did just reject you after all…"

He's trying to distract me from the game so I don't catch up and beat him. Ass.

"I would be more upset except that she rejected me by punching me across campus. It made me realize that she would likely kill me even if we were dating. Bitch is strong."

"That may very well have been the funniest day of my life."

"I hate you. I bet Hinata would go out with me!"

"That's only because she would say "no" too quietly for you to hear her."

"Hey, I'm amazing. She's missing out."

"Come on, seriously? You can see yourself with Hinata?"

"Nah, I guess not. I would hug her once and she would break in half! Plus, Kiba has had the biggest crush on her for fuck knows how long. He would maul me."

"And then Akamaru would take a shit on your dead, bleeding body."

One hilarious moment of silence later, we are both snorting to ourselves, and a moment after that, we were laughing outright, video game be damned. Whatever, I was losing anyway.

Sasuke regains his composure faster than I do, but I can still see a smile threatening to happen.

"I'm going to tell Kiba you asked her out."

"Fine. I'm sure Karin will be excited to find out that you like redheads."

Sasuke visibly shudders. Karin is a bat shit crazy Sasuke stalker, to put it mildly. She has been following him around since tenth grade when she moved here, and has since learned Sasuke's schedule, his extracurricular activities, his home address, his cell number, his e-mail, and even his preferred foods. She asks him out at least once a week, and spends the rest of the week hoarding whatever information about him she can get her hands on.

"I will kill you."

"Karin will go crazy. She'll probably try twice as hard to get her to go out with you."

"Stop."

"Heck, maybe once you're dating, she'll dye your hair red!"

"I fucking hate you."

"Well, I suppose you could just get out of it by explaining to her that by "redheads" you meant Gaa-"

I am cut short by a very angry pillow whacking me across the head. I fall down laughing, and Sasuke punches me in the gut, which causes my laughter to falter only slightly.

"Idiot. It's late and we have school tomorrow. Let's get to bed before I kill you."

I clean up our food while Sasuke turns off the electronics. We brush our teeth, change into pajamas, and get into my bed. Our friends would probably think it was weird if they saw us, two eighteen year old boys, sharing a bed, even if it is spacey. But Sasuke never seems to mind, and I certainly don't.


End file.
